Both the state House and Senate voted unanimously to cut $600 million from the $4.05 billion upper limit on borrowing for the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, and a spokesman for Gov. Tom Corbett said he would sign it.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Matt Gabler, R-Clearfield, said the changes were meant to make the process by which projects are chosen more transparent, including public comment requirements.

"We overhauled the RCAP system to make it more metric-based,'' Pagni said. "We took politics out of the process. Priorities were placed on job growth and economic impact, as well as the `shovel-readiness' of the project.''

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai says this is the first time the borrowing limit's been reduced since RCAP began in 1999. It was $1.2 billion that year, then increased on five occasions under Gov. Ed Rendell.

Some 8,000 projects have been listed in the nine itemization bills that have been passed over the past 14 years. A bill with a new list of projects is expected to be considered by a legislative committee next week, Turzai said.